The use of the Internet has become widespread over the last decade, and an important use of the Internet is e-commerce. One way in which e-commerce is conducted is through the use of websites with web pages that contain information about products and services being offered for sale by a merchant. Whether or not a web page offers the opportunity to make purchases online, users of web pages often find themselves in situations in which human assistance is desirable. One method in such assistance may be rendered is through the provision of an icon which, when activated, will result in the establishment of a phone call or text chat with a customer service agent at a call center. The phone call can be a pure VOIP (voice over internet protocol) phone call, a mixed VOIP-PSTN (public switched telephone network) call, or a pure PSTN call, which can be a “call back” call from a call center directly to a consumer or a “call back” call facilitated by a third party service provider in which the third party service provider places a first call to the user of the website at a number provided by the user and a second call to a call center and then bridges the first call to the second call. Another method in which communication between a user and a customer service agent may be established is through a text chat connection.
When a call or text chat connection is established between a user of a website and a customer service agent, it is desirable for the customer service agent to be able to view the web page being seen by the user, or selected portions thereof, so that the customer service agent can assist the user more easily, and/or control the display on the end user's computer. A method for collecting and sharing such data is disclosed in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/737,729, entitled “Method and Apparatus for JavaScript Co-Browsing.” Other methods for sharing web page information between an end user on a web site and a recipient of a phone call initiated from such a web site are also possible.